1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to fine jewelry rope chains and in particular to a link having a specialized gap for facilitating construction of such chains.
2. Description of Prior Developments
Links of numerous shapes and sizes have long been used to produce jewelry chains such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,651,517 and 5,361,575, which are incorporated herein by reference. An ongoing goal has been to reduce the weight of metal, such as gold and silver, required to form such jewelry chains. Clearly, by reducing the weight of precious metal required to construct a chain, greater savings are achieved in the resulting jewelry product.
One approach to reducing the amount of gold required in a jewelry chain is to form each link with a cross section having an elongated or major diameter and a shorter or minor diameter. By constructing the chain with the major diameter of each link facing outwardly, the chain appears equal in size to a chain constructed of links having a circular cross section equal in diameter to the major diameter of the elongated links. However, by removing material from the minor diameter of each link, less material is used in forming the elongated links than if the links of circular cross section were used.
Although these elongated links do indeed save material, construction of chains is somewhat involved in that each link must be inserted into the gap of an adjacent link and then soldered in position. When round wire is used to construct the links, the gap in each link is typically larger than the diameter of the link wire in order to enable one link to be inserted into another. When links having elongated cross sections are used, the gap in each link can be less than the major diameter of each link but larger than the minor diameter of each link.
Of course, the gap could be made larger than both the major and minor diameters of each link, but the resulting chain constructed from such links would be very loose and difficult to hold together during assembly. In order to prevent this undesirable condition, it is preferable to construct the gap in each link with an opening less than the major diameter of each link. However, such "tight" gaps can also make the construction of chains difficult.
Accordingly, a continuing need exists for a jewelry chain link which reduces the amount of precious metal required to construct a jewelry chain, yet which produces a jewelry chain having an appearance virtually identical to those which require a greater amount of precious metal.
A further need exists for such a link which has an elongated cross section and which has a gap which produces a tight chain construction.
Still a further need exists for such a chain link which has a relatively tight gap yet is easy to assemble into a chain.